In wild weather, the Frenchman was fastest through the 3.11km Llandegla stage in his Volkswagen Polo R

Sebastien Ogier won what is likely to be the Wales Rally Championship's last qualifying stage at Wales Rally GB at Llandegla today after edging out Thierry Neuville by seven hundredths of a second.

In wild weather, the Frenchman was fastest through the 3.11km Llandegla stage in his Volkswagen Polo R and earned first pick of his start position for tonight’s opening leg during the selection process this afternoon.

Qualifying is set to be scrapped for 2014 and conditions this morning were extremely unpleasant as hail, heavy rain and fierce winds brought typical Rally GB weather for the narrow but fast forest test.

Ogier was unconcerned and said at the finish: “Sometimes conditions mean it’s an advantage to be first on the road and today it wasn’t a disadvantage. The grip was good, in fact the rain helped with the grip and it’s OK to be first through.”

Ogier and Neuville were significantly faster than anyone else. Evgeny Novikov shrugged off a crash while testing in north-west England last week to post third fastest time in his Fiesta RS, but the Russian was 1.8sec behind Ogier.

Jari-Matti Latvala, who is fighting Neuville for second in the championship, was 2.1sec down in fourth, the Finn unsure whether softening the set-up of his Polo R since the pre-event test brought any benefit.

“I was too careful. I wasn’t confident enough and slowed in the faster sections. I’ve changed the set-up since my test. It was too hard before but I think I had better grip then,” he explained.

Mads Ostberg and Mikko Hirvonen completed the top six, but Hirvonen was not happy. “I didn’t have a good feeling, it’s not a good start,” said the Citroen DS3 pilot.

Robert Kubica was seventh on his World Rally Car debut, the Pole satisfied with his performance but admitting he ‘had a lot to learn’.

Advertising

Send a story

Advertise with the Daily Post

Print

The Daily Post is North Wales’ Best Read Daily Newspaper.

Reaching over 1 in 4 people in the area (Source: JICREG 01/10/12, reaches 26.72%% of people within Daily Post area each month)

The Daily Post is a trustworthy and favourite local newspaper (108,000 people said the Daily Post was their favourite local newspaper, 135,000 people saying that the Daily Post is a trustworthy local newspaper - GfK NOP 2008 )

Interested in advertising?

The Editor

Mark Thomas

Liverpool-born Mark joined the Daily Post in January 2014 after seven years as editor of its Merseyside sister title the Liverpool Post. He started out as a weekly news reporter on Wirral Newspapers, and spent seven years at the Daily Post and Liverpool Echo. He was The Press Association's regional correspondent for North Wales, Merseyside and Cheshire from 1983 to 1997, before returning to the ECHO as deputy news editor. He has won a number of journalism awards, including the UK Press Gazzette Regional Reporter of the Year award, and in 1993 wrote a book on the James Bulger murder.